


You Spin Me

by blakefancier



Series: A Perfect World [10]
Category: Captain America (2011)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-27
Updated: 2011-11-27
Packaged: 2017-10-26 14:55:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284573
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blakefancier/pseuds/blakefancier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is a bit of a jerk and Howard doesn't deny he's a high maintenance princess.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Spin Me

**Author's Note:**

> At some point today, I'm going to respond to all the comment I've received this past week. At some point. Once I break free of the food lethargy I have going.

Steve walks for a long time, ambling aimlessly, until his stomach growls and he realizes that he's hungry. There's a diner up ahead, and he stops in for some coffee and a piece of apple pie.

He keeps his head down, ignoring the stares from the other patrons—tired looking men and women in clothes that cost a fraction of what his suit does—and pokes at the pie in front of him.

God, what is he doing? What the hell is he doing? He doesn't belong in Howard's world. He's just a poor, orphaned kid from Brooklyn, and no matter what he did back in the war, that's all anybody really sees.

A poor kid that Howard Stark, millionaire inventor, is amusing himself with and when he's done… And when he's done…

Only Howard isn't like that. Steve knows Howard isn't like that, so what does it matter? And why does Steve *care?* He shouldn't care, he really shouldn't, but he's beginning to realize he doesn't know as much about Howard as he thought he did. The war made it easy to put off meaningful conversations, but now Steve's paying for that. Stane made it clear that Steve knows very little about Howard's life before the war. And that isn't right, it galls that Stane knows more about his lover than he does.

Steve sets the fork down on the plate and rubs his eyes. He's so tired; he just wants… he wants to be comfortable. Is that too much to ask for?

Damn!

He pays for his meal and heads home.

*****

Jarvis opens the door before he even manages to get the key into the lock. He doesn't sigh at that, though he finds it disconcerting. He always finds it disconcerting.

"Mr. Stark?" he asks.

"Downstairs, sir," Jarvis says, and Steve knows he isn't imagining the lilt of disappointment in the man's voice.

Steve sighs, running his hand through his hair, and heads down to the workroom.

Howard is hunched over the table, his entire focus on the small doodad in his hand. Steve sits across from him and watches as Howard adjusts something with a small screwdriver.

"Can we talk?" he says, when Howard puts down the tool.

"No." Howard's voice is clipped, cold.

"I really think we should talk."

"What is there to talk about, Steve?" Howard sets the doodad on the table and looks up at him. "You left. You left without telling me, without… I didn't know where you went! I rushed home and… It doesn't matter. "

"It does matter. Howard, I want to explain. I—"

"No." He shakes his head. "No, I don't want an explanation. I don't need an explanation. I get it."

"What? What do you get?" Steve tries to keep the edge of anger from his voice, but he doesn't think he's doing a very good job.

Howard takes a deep breath and stares at his hands. "When I found you alive, I thought… I thought it was a sign. I thought it meant… I'm not a romantic. I don't go in for poetry and happily ever after, but I thought it meant…" He looks up at Steve. "I thought it meant we belonged together. But all it meant was that science prevails."

Steve stares down at the heavily scarred table and runs the side of his thumb along a deep groove.

"It's okay, Steve. Really, it is. You don't owe me anything."

"But I do, Howard." Steve glances up at him.

"Not this. Not..." He gestures at the two of them. "It's all right. You're not… This isn't easy. This is… I'm not an easy man to live with, I know that. You think you're the first person who wanted to have a talk? I'll even make it easy for you, Steve. This is how the conversation begins: I love you, Howard, but you work too much and drink too much and need too much."

"Howard, that isn't—"

"It is." He nods and Steve lets out a sound of frustration.

"No, Howard, it's not. " Steve reaches over and takes Howard's hands. He's not sure who he's more frustrated with, Howard or himself. "I love you. That's it, that's all. I love you. I'm not breaking this off. I'm not leaving!" He's not even sure when he decided *that.*

"Not now." Howard sounds so resigned, so defeated and Steve hates that. He doesn't want to ever hear Howard sound like that again.

"Dammit, Howard, not ever!" Steve lets go of his hands and walks over to Howard. He cups Howard face and kisses him hard and bruising. "I am never leaving you. I was an idiot for walking out without telling you. I was an idiot for not coming straight home. And I was a damn idiot for letting Obadiah Stane get under my skin!"

"Obi?" Howard blinks at him in confusion. "What does he—"

"He said some very nasty things about you."

"Obadiah? Why would he do that?" For a genius, Howard can be blindingly naïve about the people he calls his friends.

"I don't know. But the next time he talks about you like that, I'm gonna knock him into next week. No one talks about my guy like that." Steve smiles and kisses him again. "You know, you don't have to be a romantic to believe in miracles."

"Miracles?" Howard raises an eyebrow.

"What else would you call what you did? Finding me like a needle in a haystack, alive, when I should be dead. Miracles don’t happen every day, Howard. But they do happen."

"Yeah, I guess they do." Howard looks up at him, a little frown on his face, looking, for the life of him, like he can't understand Steve at all.

That's all right, though, Steve doesn't much understand himself at this moment.

Be a good man, Erskine said. Good men don't hurt the ones they love. Good men don't give up when things get tough. They soldier on, they fight for what they love: their families, their friends, their country.

"You're a good man, Howard Stark. I love you, no buts about it."


End file.
